Charles, Prince of Wales

Prince Charles on the cover of UK MAD Magazine #243 drawn by Harry North

Appearing in MAD #48 (July '59), less than a year after "Charles P.'s" letter arrived at the MAD offices, the fake strip "Bringing Up Bonnie Prince Charlie" - concocted by writer Frank Jacobs and artist Wally Wood as part of "Comic Strip Heroes Taken From Real Life" - didn't go over well in the United Kingdom. According to Maria Riedelbach's 1991 book Completely MAD, the British tabloids described the strip as "'a cheap and contemptible insult'...to the surprise of MAD's editors." We suspect the depiction of a less-than-sparkling Queen Elizabeth II might have been the tip-off point. But hey, I'm a Canadian anti-monarchist, so what do I know?

Harry North caricatured "knobby-kneed" Prince Charles for this portion of the third edition of the Tom Koch series "The MAD Nasty Book," which ran in MAD #231 (June '82).

According to MAD's Letters and Tomatoes Dep't, a last-minute surge from the magazine's Canadian readers cemented Prince Charles' position atop the Alfred E. Neuman Lookalike Contest, beating out contenders Ted Koppel and David Letterman. Richard Williams designed the "Alfred's back" art for the cover of MAD #322 (October '93).

Prince Charles' not-so-secret phone calls to his previous (and future) paramour Camilla Parker-Bowles were among the royal scandals caricatured by Sam Viviano in the Mike Snider-written "Instant Nostalgia (For The Not-Yet-Old-Enough-For-Regular-Nostalgia)." It originally ran in MAD #324 (January '94).

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, as illustrated by Angelo Torres, make their bow in this portion of "MAD's Beatles Songbook." Written by Frank Jacobs, the five-song Fab Four skewering wrapped up with "The Royal Family," sung to the tune of "Yellow Submarine." It originally ran in MAD #345 (May '96).